


Until the Whole World Falls Apart

by underlanderfromtheoverland



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (and jobs), (she does her best but she doesn't know everything), Mythology - Freeform, Please watch Time's Apprentice otherwise this won't make sense, Slightly unreliable narrator, Theresa kicks ass and takes names, This is a fic-of-a-fic in a way, Time's Apprentice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 20:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underlanderfromtheoverland/pseuds/underlanderfromtheoverland
Summary: Time flowed differently when the God of Time bestowed his favor on you- or maybe that was just immortality taking hold. Or maybe it was shock.~~~After the end, what comes next? Everyone’s dead except Theresa, and she’s enslaved by the God of Time. He’s won. All she can do is obey him and hope he doesn’t tire of her.But it isn’t.~~~This is a fic of articulatelyComposed’s musical Time’s Apprentice.Time's Apprentice is a show based on the story of the Ancestors but adapted to make more sense for non-Homestucks. The soundtrack is INCREDIBLE and this was written as a gift fic for the writer-slash-composer to celebrate the official release of the show onto the Internets.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Until the Whole World Falls Apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [articulatelyComposed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/articulatelyComposed/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Time's Apprentice](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/533125) by articulatelyComposed. 

> Again, this is a fic-of-a-fic that's related to Homestuck, but not an ACTUAL fic of Homestuck. Please take a look before you read this fic, otherwise it won't make any sense.  
The full show is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtvNG-2xLEU  
The soundtrack is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvxUXNWXoDI&list=PLYMSSSp5S9ZV3eOdsKaOSjTAn5pAXDgIP

Time flowed differently when the God of Time bestowed his favor on you- or maybe that was just immortality taking hold. Or maybe it was shock. Time seemed to warp and stretch. In any case, it was… strange.

And lonely.

For most of her life Theresa had been surrounded by others- classmates, coworkers, fellow rebels- but here? It was just her and a God. She couldn’t exactly relate to a God.

And, it seemed, he couldn’t relate to her. 

Grief, for example, he claimed as an unfamiliar sensation. Theresa certainly hoped so, or the fact that he deposited her into Mara’s untouched room and declared it hers would be nothing more than abject cruelty. In another situation, she might have noticed that the room seemed to be designed for a child instead of an immortal young woman, that there was nothing of Mara’s personality anywhere in it, or that the lock was on the _outside_ of the door. She didn’t, though. Instead, she noticed that the bed was unmade. Did immortal beings sleep? Did they eat? What had she agreed to by freeing her friend from this torment? She’d said she could handle this, but did she really know that? All she had were questions without answers and a newly bequeathed wardrobe full of green dresses.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she perched on the edge of the bed before her legs could give out under her. Red smudges marred the bedframe where her hand touched it. Oh. Blood. Of course there would be blood. She’d killed someone. She’d killed Mara. Death had come for her thrice, and yet, she still lived. She outlived even death herself. Her breath caught again, and her eyes stayed trained on the floor like it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. Her vision blurred with welling tears, turning the rug into an indistinct, soft-edged shape.

“Are we quite done with these dramatics?” 

There he was, standing in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back and a look of smug indifference on his face. Theresa’s grip on the bedframe tightened, leaving more red smears. Half-dry blood cracked around the folds of her knuckles. Had she really been here long enough for it to start to dry? She didn’t answer him. She didn’t move. After a moment, he spoke again.

“Is crying a natural response to the gift of immortality?” 

Theresa lifted her hand to wipe her face, but she stopped. Her fingers were still covered in blood. The God of Time simply continued.

“Mara did quite a bit of that, too, when I first brought her to my domain, but she was quite young at the time. Then again, in the face of eternity, you are as well.” He stepped into the room and straightened his already perfect tie. “But I ask again, are we quite done with these theatrics? You’re needed.”

Theresa then spoke her first word to a God. “Needed?”

The God of Wrath’s expression morphed into a vaguely sardonic and almost sarcastically patronizing half-smile. “Yes, my child. Needed. I have an assignment for you. The first of many, if you don’t fuck this up.”

An assignment. That only made sense. Theresa was quite familiar with assignments from corrupt superiors, but would her same delaying and partial-truths redirect a God’s attention the same way it had for her various anti-revolutionary employers? She doubted it. She’d have to be more subtle. She’d have to earn his trust. He was a God, but he couldn’t read her mind, could he? He clearly wasn’t entirely omnipotent, or he’d have no need for servants to do his bidding. He could just snap his fingers and make it happen. Whatever she did, though, she’d need to earn his trust before trying anything. 

“Can I wash my hands first?” she asked quietly.

The smile on the God of Time’s face took on a note of genuineness.

“No arguments? No complaints? Well, I must say that’s quite a nice change.” He didn’t answer her question, but he did minutely nod his head towards a door in the opposite wall. “Your instructions will be waiting for you in my office. Join me there once you have finished.” By the time Theresa stood, The God of Time had already left. 

Behind that door, which she was fairly sure hadn’t been there just moments ago, she found a bathroom outfitted with an ornate sink and a claw-foot bathtub, but no toilet. She supposed that answered her question about needing to eat, albeit indirectly. 

She turned the sink to run the hottest it could and began scrubbing the memory of Mara’s last moment from her skin. The scent of copper filled her nose again, but she didn’t know if it was from the blood on her hands or the memory of the blade in Mara’s stomach. She felt no regret, but not regretting her actions didn’t change the fact that she’d killed someone. She’d killed her friend.

Theresa only turned the water off when she could no longer stand the heat and her hands were scrubbed half-raw. She expected to need to wander the halls to find his office, but the door to her room opened right into another room of wall-to-wall bookshelves. 

There, in the center of the room, sat the God himself. His elbows rested on the surface of a desk as green as his tie, and before him, on the edge of the desk, sat a snow-white envelope. He unfolded his hands just long enough to gesture to it, giving silent permission (or perhaps an order) for her to take it. She did. It wasn’t sealed, and a similarly pure white note slipped out easily with barely a rasp of paper-on-paper. The weight of his unwavering gaze pressed down on her as she quickly skimmed over the looping script. Theresa’s pulse thrummed in her ears like a metronome. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly, and she looked up.

“You want me to get a barista fired?”

He gave a slow nod and said one word. “Yes.”

“…That doesn’t make any sense. How can a teenager making coffee affect the-“

The God of Wrath stood from his seat and glared with an undiluted fury unlike anything Theresa had ever seen. “Do. Not. Question. Me.” 

Instinctively, Theresa took half a step back, but just as quickly as it had come, his anger seemed to pass. He settled back into his seat and steepled his fingers.

“The world is not a simple case of cause and effect. It is a game of chess. Even the lowly pawns must be in the right place to allow the king to be placed in check. And perhaps it’s a bit like dominos as well. Every piece must be put in place so that when one topples, the rest go with it. So-“ he gestured to the note in her hand. “Get the child fired. Things will make sense in time.” The God of Fate tapped one finger to his lips ponderously and looked Theresa over. “We’ll discuss your uniform more when you return. For now, you have coffee to ruin.” 

Theresa could say nothing more because with another gesture from him, she was on a street corner with a sea of greens and teals swarming around her. Her hand still held tightly to the note, putting creases into the previously-pristine stationary. A coffee shop across the street hosted an endless stream of customers flowing in and out. A pimply-faced boy stood behind the counter, making and distributing an equally endless stream of cups. 

She could do this.

She had to.

Three days later, The God of Time summoned her back to his realm and greeted her with a smile that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “You’ve done well for a first mission. There will be another for you soon. For now, you may go. There should be something for you to entertain yourself with around here.”

Theresa nodded and turned to go back to Mara’s room. Her room, now. Evidently the layout of this strange space was malleable, because the door that once lead between that bedroom and the God’s office now had an opening to a hallway. A few doors down, one of them hung open, and Theresa found the familiar bedroom beyond it. The bed was made this time, and the green dresses were gone from the wardrobe. Yet another piece of Mara, now erased. 

In their place were a collection of lime green blazers, white blouses, and black pencil skirts, not unlike what Theresa wore to her now-former job. Distantly, she wondered if anyone had arranged for someone to take over her caseload. How had her absence been explained? Or had she just vanished from her office, leaving only a body and a puddle of blood behind? None of it was hers, but they wouldn’t know that immediately. Would they declare her a murderer? She supposed she already was, and it was only a matter of time until she was made into one again by the God of Destruction’s plans. 

She’d do it. She’d follow his orders, ingratiate herself to him, play the part of the obedient handmaid, but only until she could find a way to undo this. She’d fix this. Even if she couldn’t bring them back, she’d find a way to fix the world, to build the one the Eyeless Prophet saw, the one his disciples dreamed of, the one Mara deserved to live in. 

She could do this. 

She had to.

Days compressed to moments, years to mere blinks, but the seconds moved slowly, like a watch winding down- just time, ticking on, until the whole world falls apart. 

Time still passed strangely in the Time God’s Domain, but Theresa learned to live with it. In the interminable measures between assignments, she explored, and what she found was both surprising and strangely self-evident. The endless green rooms were not so endless as they seemed. If she went far enough and in the right direction, she’d find herself elsewhere: a palace of endless fountains that poured out water that looked like the night sky, perhaps, or an old-growth forest with leaves that shone like crystals. 

At first, she stayed within sight of the green hallways that spat her out into these strange places for fear of getting lost, but as the months-years-decades passed, she went further afield. These spaces were seemingly untouched by the God of Time’s designs, and they were a wonderful escape from the role she’d taken on. In his presence, she was the dutiful servant, and in time, a quietly enthusiastic participant in his convoluted plans, which she learned were to raze the whole world to the ground to be rebuilt to his twisted designs.

Out in these strange spaces, though, she was her own person. She didn’t have to pretend. She could have her own thoughts without wondering if she’d accidentally give something away in a facial expression or the set of her shoulders. She could scream without drawing attention. She could cry without fear of being caught. She could scheme without his watchful eye on her. Had Mara had ever found the meadows the color of the Empress’s eyes or splashed through the shallow sea surrounding an archipelago of rocky islands. Had she ever been beyond the God of Wrath’s reach?

Out in one of the realms, the one with the crystalline forest, she found an answer, at least partially. 

In one of the trees, a structure clung to the branches about twenty feet up. It looked crude, like something a child would make. Surely Mara had made her way here and made this. There wasn’t a chance that the God of Time would construct something like this, especially so haphazardly. Perhaps she’d find something that Mara left behind, some physical reminder that she’d been here. Her room had been so bare already, and once the God of Time switched out the clothes in the wardrobe, there’d been nothing left to show that she’d ever lived there. 

So Theresa climbed. Rough bark bit into her palms and knees, but she kept climbing, branch by branch. Twice, she almost fell, but she made it up to the crude treehouse without tumbling back to the forest floor. Hoisting herself over the edge of the platform posed a bit more of a challenge, but with a lot of kicking and yanking and having the edge of branches dig into her stomach, she managed to get herself inside. 

“You know, if you had just asked, I would have put the ladder down.”

Theresa jumped enough to almost send her toppling back over the edge, and she whipped her head around to find the source of the voice. For a fraction of a second, she was sure the God of Wrath had found her, but no, the voice too high to be his and far more melodic. It came from a man of indeterminate age leaning on a doorframe that lead into a second room, which hadn’t been visible from the ground. 

“Um,” Theresa said.

“But I have to say, I’m impressed. Most mortals don’t make it into the realms of the Gods. You are mortal, right? I didn’t forget one of us?”

Theresa belatedly realized she was still half laying on the floor with her feet hanging over the edge. “No, you’re right, I’m mortal. Ish,” she said as she stood. 

“Ish?” he asked.

“I’m sort of working for the God of Time?”

The man- a God, she realized, but which one?- groaned. “He picked up another apprentice? What happened to the first one?”

Theresa suppressed a small wince. Even after all this time, remembering what she’d done still stung. “She died.”

The unknown God winced sympathetically. “Ooh, sore subject, sorry. I forget how touchy humans get about death and stuff. But at least that explains how you got out here.” His self-admonishment returned to the bright smile he’d originally worn. “So, what do you want?”

“Want?”

“Yeah, want. People don’t just come to my forest for no reason. They always want me to do something for them or give them something. No one ever comes for a social visit, just to ask for things. It’s kinda the whole reason I stopped sticking my nose in Earth business. Leave that to the Gods who actually want to deal with humans, right? I mean, you’re great and all, but…” He gave a small shrug. “Besides, it’s so hard to get anything done when Mr. Puppetmaster keeps changing it. The most I can do is poke around where he’s not looking.”

“I didn’t come to ask you for anything. I was just exploring, but…” Theresa stood up a bit straighter and a small, hopeful smile spread across her face. “Can I ask for a story?” Maybe this was her chance. Maybe with this god’s help, she could change things.

“Sure!” He sat cross-legged on the floor and leaned forward, almost folding himself in half so he could rest his elbows on the floor in front of him. A light breeze ruffled his dark hair. “A story about what?”

Theresa settled across from him, a respectful distance away. He was a God, after all, and her work in the legal system and for another God had taught her well the benefits of proper decorum. “Can you tell me about how the Gods created the world?”

“Oh!” he said, perking up a bit. “That’s a great one. Well… we weren’t always gods, actually!”

Theresa nodded enthusiastically, encouraging him to continue. Not always Gods, hm? Maybe she could use that. 

For weeks on end, she returned to this treehouse in every spare moment, absorbing story after story. The God, who she soon learned was the God of Wind and Change, told her of the creation of the Gods, the creation of the World, how the God of Time had become what he was, and how the other Gods withdrew from the world. She learned of ascension. She learned of limitations. She learned that the realms were the domains of the other gods. She learned that Mara had never wandered beyond the confines of the God of Time’s domain. More important than what she learned, though, was what she made. She made an ally. She made a friend. She made a plan. 

Time ticked on while the whole world fell apart, but maybe, just maybe, it didn’t have to.

~~~

The taste of rebellion lingered in the mouths of the oppressed and the empowered alike long after the fall of their Eyeless Prophet and the last of his followers. The God of Destruction knew true change would take but a few more nudges, a few more of his fingerprints upon the timeline- a missing file, a ruined morning coffee, a lost key. Unlike Mara, Theresa lived and failed to die by the hands-off approach. The Girl Dressed in Lime became flashes in the shadows, nothing more than a glimpse in the corner of an eye. She was all the more terrifying for it, and all the more dangerous 

His new apprentice was not nearly as efficient as the old with her lack of innate time powers, but it was barely an inconvenience to manually put her in place. Besides, her reliance on him made her far easier to handle and far less rebellious. She did as she was told, and she did it well.

Moment by endless moment, the regime fell, carried by the twisted hands of fate. The God of Time simply watched and waited. Centuries later, which were nothing to the immortal and eternal, open warfare scarred the planet, urged on by his newest handmaid. Together, they had assembled this house of cards, and together, they’d bring it tumbling down. 

Yes, he thought. He’d made a good choice. (Some might say that it had, in fact, been Mara and Theresa’s choice. Those people were inconsequential and also wrong. No choices made were any but his own will except when such deviations were needed to manifest his grand plans elsewhere.)

“Well done,” he said as he and his protégé surveyed the latest scene of their destruction- the first time in eons he’d left his realm and descended to Earth. A single rerouted order resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands and the last, definitive blow dealt to both sides of this war. Now, there was only him with the power to raise humanity out of their squalor. From now until eternity, humanity would worship him _properly_ as their God-King. Those who didn’t? Well. Theresa deserved a place in this new world as well. What better position for her than as enforcer of his will? She’d done a glorious job of it so far. 

“Yes, I agree,” Theresa said, mirroring his small, satisfied smile. “We’ve done a wonderful job here, haven’t we?”

The God of Fate nodded once, but when he turned to look at his apprentice, she was looking past him. He pivoted his head and, for the first time in eons, was surprised by what he saw. Familiar faces stared back at him, ones he had not seen in many, many years.

“I see,” he said, shaking his head slowly and turning to look back at Theresa. “Did you really think that the other Gods would be of any help here?” He ignored the indignant ‘hey’ from behind him in favor of staring down his now-former assistant. “I’m disappointed in you. You seem to have forgotten that I am the God of Fate. You cannot oppose me and expect to succeed.”

“I already have.”

Fury flared in his eyes and he stood up a bit straighter. “Impossible.”

Theresa smiled coldly at him, a smile she’d copied from his own face many times before. “Oh, quite possible. You have blind spots, and I hid in them. Mara made you so used to direct rebellion that you didn’t think to check elsewhere. And you’re not in your realm, now. Your powers are weaker.”

He laughed once. “And what is your plan, now?”

“Now? I kill you.” 

The God of Time laughed. “You cannot kill a god.”

Theresa shook her head, but her cold smile only grew. “No, you can’t. But you can bind one. And to you? That might as well be death.” 

~~~

The battle shook the world to its core. Fundamentals of reality itself warped and twisted, cracked and shattered. Splinters of entropy ricocheted across the universe. Mortal eyes could not comprehend the immensity of the powers used nor the sheer destructive force of even one blow among the thousands dealt. It was only due to the immortality granted to her by the very God they were fighting that Theresa wasn’t ripped to atoms. Lifting it was apparently more trouble than it was worth while trying to fend off attacks from other Gods. The God of Fate may have had an advantage because of the nature of his powers, but he was still one fighting against many.

It was hard-won, but in the end, he fell. 

The last Theresa saw of him was a snarl of unbridled fury just moments before he vanished to spend eternity sealed away in a prison of the Gods’ design. For once, it didn’t frighten her. 

They’d done it.

They’d won.

The Gods stood back, but they did not leave. They simply watched the first Godly ally Theresa had made, the God of Wind, approach her on the charred bedrock- all that remained of their battlefield. What now? She’d never thought beyond this moment. She’d felt like she would have somehow jinxed it if she did, but now she was here. Her plan was successful. She’d avenged Mara, and Kiran, and Rosa, and all the others hurt and killed in the God of Time’s wretched schemes. It still wouldn’t bring them back. It still wouldn’t rebuild the world. Could it even _be_ rebuilt now?

”Hey, Theresa.” The God of Wind nudged her with his elbow. It still felt so strange that a God was so casual with her, but she’d long since learned to just accept it. “Your turn.”

“What?” she asked.

“Your turn. To tell a story. I told you so many, and you only told me a few, so it’s only fair that you tell me one now.”

Theresa looked at him in confusion. “I’ve told you everything I know, everything I’ve done. I don’t have anything else I can tell you.”

“Well,” the God of Wind said theatrically, “then how about this- since we all did you a huge favor, you do us one.”

Theresa’s confusion only grew. What favor could she do for Gods? Become their agents like she had for The God of Time? Before she could say anything, the God of Wind continued.

“There has to be a balance. We can’t exactly have a God of Space but no God of Time. You know what I mean?”

Theresa did, in fact, know what he meant. For a moment she just stared at him. Then her breath hitched, and she buried her face in her hands. The God of Wind took a step back and looked desperately to the other Gods for help. He hadn’t expected her to start _crying_-

When a sound finally tore from her throat, it was an almost hysterical laugh, and once it was out, even more followed. The God of Wind just became even more confused. 

“Um.” He said. 

“Are you kidding me?” Theresa choked out.

“Um.” He repeated. “…No?”

This just made Theresa laugh even harder. “God, what is this? Is this just what I do? Kill people and steal their job?”

“Um.” The God of Wind said for a third time. “Is… that a yes?”

Theresa threw her hands into the air then wiped at her face. Were those tears of laughter or tears of sorrow or something else? Even she didn’t know. 

“Sure,” she said as her frantic laughing died down to endless, breathless giggles. “Sure, why not? I’ve got nothing else to do. And maybe I can do some actual good with this instead of just mitigating someone else’s evil.”

“Um.” The God of Wind said yet again. “What?”

“Literally everything I’ve done has been a reaction to what someone else was doing. I fought _against_ the empire, I fought _against_ the God of Time. Maybe now I can actually fight _for_ something.”

“So… is that a yes?”

Theresa finally regained control of herself and gave a nod. “Yes.”

And with that, the universe seemed to shift around her. That strange sense of time bending and compressing and stretching happened again, but this time, it wasn’t like being buffeted by strong currents. It was like her heartbeat, and every ba-bump let her See. Knowledge of time and timelines washed over her. She saw universes where her friends lived, ones where they died, one where they never met. She saw possibility spread out like a tapestry woven from infinite threads of potential. 

She saw that she couldn’t bring them back. 

Not here. Not in this universe. Not without undoing everything she’d fought for since and giving that bastard back everything she’d finally wrenched from his poisonous grasp. But she could honor them here. She could use her new powers like she’d promised Mara- like she’d promised _herself_. She’d build a new world from the ashes of this one, and she’d make sure it was better, one that her friends would be proud of. One that _she_ would be proud of.

She knew now that time wasn’t a static thing. It was like the tempo of a song, speeding and slowing, but she wasn’t just in the audience. She was the conductor. She was the entire orchestra. She was every singer. She was The God of Time. 

No.

She _is_ Time, and she’ll keep ticking on until the whole world falls apart.


End file.
